Backpack Survival - Backpack Fever, by Duncan Long

"A "back-pack survivalist" is a survivalist that plans on leaving his home ahead of a disaster and taking to the woods with only what he can carry out with him. He plans to survive through a strategy that is a sort of cross between the Boy-Scout-in-the-woods and Robinson Crusoe. The backpack survivalist plans on outrunning danger with a four-wheel drive or a motorcycle and hopes to travel light with a survival kit of everything he might need to cope with the unexpected. He hasn't cached anything in the area he's headed for because, chances are, he doesn't know where he's headed. Somehow, he hopes to overcome all odds with a minimum of supplies and a maximum of smarts. Certainly it is a noble cause; but it seems like one destined to failure. And that's not survival."
-Excerpt from Backpack Fever, by Duncan Long

That is actually the decision I came to several years ago when I tried to get the wife to hoist up the backpack I loaded for her. I realized that if we ever had to hoof it out, I had better be at the back of the group, or she would either shoot me or club me with her BO rifle! Bug in has been my answer for several years now. Matter of fact, just sold her hiking boots last week on eBay!

"From this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered; we few, we happy few, we band of brothers, for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother, and the gentleman now a bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhood cheap" -- Henry V

I think the moral of the story is to look to your own place and see what you can do to make it work. Many who hang on survival type sites seem obsessed with Getting out of Dodge but have little or no plans as to where that will be.

You CANNOT carry enough stuff to make it on your own in the woods without resortng to looting. And, Looter will get themselves shot

You are exactly right Melbo. If you remember a long time ago in a board far far away (WR), I made that exact statement and was accused of being un American for even thinking of looting and thievery. The scenario was a general BO by the masses, I said I would stay at home and when the pickings got slim, there is a nice highway near by that will be full of idiots that are begging you to take their stuff from them. If there was ever such thing as a digital rope, I about got it.

"From this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered; we few, we happy few, we band of brothers, for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother, and the gentleman now a bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhood cheap" -- Henry V

You CANNOT carry enough stuff to make it on your own in the woods without resortng to looting.

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I would have to qualify that by saying you couldnt carry enouph to LIVE (as in a standard of life above maintaining a pulse) on your own in the woods. I would say that if one took the time to learn the skills and was going to be living in a grass hut or some such and eating bugs and rodents to suplement anything better they could come up with along with any gathered vegitation that was edible then they might well manage to maintain a pulse with what they could pack out.

That said, getting a place set up that one is not likely to have to leave unless for a very localized emergency and making sure to keep a BHB (bug home bag) packed and in the vehicles to make it back in a worst case situation would be by FAR a better option.

Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect aplause, he noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self made laws....

Agreed mm. It can be done.
Our current society seems to like the couch however and I doubt the average Joe I see at the grocery store could live for more than 2 weeks on grubs cooked over a fire started by a fire bow.

Not gonna happen.

It CAN be done. Just not to the extent that many 'survivalists' seem to think

Yup, most folks turned loose in the woods would starve to death and fall dead on a dozen sources of food, most of which they wouldnt have eaten if they knew they could have due to aversions and thinking it was to gross. Just had to kind of qualify the idea that it couldnt be done to that it couldnt be done by most due to lack of knowledge and most of the rest would know it wouldnt be much of a life.

Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect aplause, he noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self made laws....

There isn't much of an alternative, either. Rambo could do it, but the rest of us would be up the creek in short order. More years ago than I care to think about, I might have been able to hang onto a thread of life alone in the woods, but these days about all I could guarantee is a contribution to a group.